In a career spanning more than five decades, he has received numerous awards including his involvement in the origins of the Notting Hill Carnival in the 1960s.

Henderson, Betancourt and Ralph Cherrie, initiated the multicultural Notting Hill children street festival organised by Rhaune Laslett in 1964.

Betancourt has also taken steelpan to many other countries throughout Europe and Asia, including Switzerland, Hong Kong, Bahrain, Dubai, Abu Dhabi, Qatar, Morocco, Indonesia, Germany, Spain, France, Oman, Italy, Sicily, Sweden and Norway.

He was appointed as a Member of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire in the New Year Honours 2002 "for services to the steel band movement".

In 2012, on the occasion of the Trinidad and Tobago Independence Jubilee celebrations, he was a recipient of one of the Arts awards recognising citizens who made a positive contribution to the promotion and development of Trinidad and Tobago in the United Kingdom during the past 50 years, given at a gala dinner in London hosted by High Commissioner Garvin Nicholas.